Learn More about Pain Management, Chiropractic Care, and Regenerative Medicine

Pain management is oftentimes using a combination of multiple pain treatments working together to reduce or eliminate pain. For most people, it’s important to manage pain in order to participate in enjoyable activities and to have quality of life.

But managing pain for athletes is a completely different ballgame. Athletes have a lot riding on physical performance, and pain impacts their lives more drastically. Pain can change the outcomes of the games they play in, and it can ultimately put their sports careers on the line.

For these reasons, effective pain management is critical for athletes. Below are some effective pain management techniques used by athletes today.

Physical Therapy

Physical therapy is critical for athletes because it helps strengthen and rehabilitate after sports injuries. There are a variety of physical therapies available that offer pain relief, reduce inflammation, promote healing, increase flexibility and range of motion, and strengthen the body.

Some of the types of physical therapy used by athletes include therapeutic exercises, cold and hot therapies, orthotics, and bracing/taping. The best clinics offer sport-specific physical therapy training and conditioning, which help to ensure that athletes get the right type of help and can go back to playing their sports after recovery.

Massage Therapy

There are several types of massage that are perfect for reducing pain after injuries or surgery, including deep tissue, shiatsu, hot stone, and Swedish. Massage therapy can be effective in reducing pain, relaxing muscles and other soft tissues, and reducing stress in the body – making it an ideal option for athletes who need to heal quickly and go back to their sports.

PRP and Stem Cell Therapy

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy involves using a patient’s own platelets to stimulate the body’s natural healing process and thereby provide pain relief. PRP therapy is performed by a doctor or specialist withdrawing a small amount of blood and isolating the platelets via a centrifuge machine. The platelets and plasma are then injected into the desired area that needs treatment.

The platelet-rich plasma stimulates healing so the body can heal more quickly. PRP is an effective treatment for athletes’ pain management and healing because it speeds up the healing process, allowing them to return to their sports faster.

Stem cell therapy involves using isolated stem cells from the patient’s own fat or bone marrow to promote faster healing. Similarly to PRP therapy, a doctor or specialist withdraws cells from the person’s body (usually adipose cells, or fat cells) and has it processed in a lab to gather the stem cells.

The concentrated solution is then injected into the site that needs healing. This type of therapy is usually effective after severe injuries.

Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle

Pain management while the body heals becomes highly dependent on the food and liquids you consume. The body needs the right type of fuel to thrive.

Athletes looking to manage their pain should also make the basic lifestyle choices that are healthy for everyone, such as not smoking, keeping alcohol intake to a minimum, staying hydrated, and eating lots of healthy fruits, vegetables, and lean meats to get key nutrients. By maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle, the body can heal better and more quickly.

Pain Management Doctors in Washington and Oregon

Pain management often requires using multiple treatments together for better and faster results. If you are an athlete looking to make an effective pain management plan, talk to a doctor today about what treatments would work best for you.

Lynx Healthcare offers a variety of medical care services, including interventional pain medicine, regenerative medicine, chiropractic and massage therapy, and much more. To make an appointment at one of the Lynx Healthcare clinics in Oregon, Yakima, Tri-Cities, or Goldendale, call us at (509) 591-0070, or call (509) 321-4575 for our Spokane clinic. We look forward to helping you achieve your best!

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Pain Management For Arthritis

The goal of pain management is to eliminate or reduce your pain so that you can live a healthy, active, and productive lifestyle. To accomplish this, our pain management doctors may recommend interventional procedures, physical therapy, medication, or a combination of treatments to help you manage and reduce pain caused by a variety of orthopedic or neurological conditions and injuries. For many people suffering through chronic pain and stiffness, arthritis is often the culprit.

Arthritis is a painful condition affecting approximately 350 million people worldwide. The definition of arthritis is a condition that causes pain and inflammation in your joints. While some forms of arthritis are less common, such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis (also called wear and tear arthritis) finds a way to creep into the lives of so many people as they move through life. Chronic pain lasts three to six months or longer, and chronic arthritis pain can last a lifetime.

When you live with chronic pain, in this case due to arthritis, you are the only one who can know how it truly feels. Pain can be hard to describe because it is subjective, invisible, and personal. According to arthritis.org, in a recent Arthritis Foundation survey, more than half of the respondents said they had trouble talking about their pain. If you can’t put into words how much pain you are in, or how it is affecting your lifestyle, your doctor won’t be able to administer the right treatment for you.

Therefore, if you are experiencing arthritic pain, such as burning, stabbing, muscle pain, sharp, throbbing pain, try to describe exactly where you are hurting, the intensity of your pain, and how it is affecting your life. This is where the pain scale comes in. Your doctor will ask you to “rate” your pain on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being the least pain, and severe pain being 10. The doctor will use this assessment, along with any necessary diagnostic procedure, to help diagnose and manage your pain.

Early pain management treatment of both common types of arthritis – rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis – is essential to prevent further complications. For osteoarthritis, patient treatment may include exercises to strengthen your muscles, physical therapy, medication, or injections. In cases of severely damaged joints, a joint replacement surgery might be the last resort. Treatment for those suffering from rheumatoid arthritis may also include physical therapy, and will often include medication to reduce inflammation, and prevent joint and organ damage.

To learn more about different pain management options for treating arthritis, call Lynx Healthcare at (509) 591-0070 or at (509) 321-4575 to request an appointment.

How Psychology Can Help with Pain Management

Pain is something that most of us have felt at one point or another in our lives – everything from the pain of a stubbed toe to a broken bone to the painful feeling of a broken heart. But chronic pain – that is, persistent, unrelenting pain that lingers for three to six months or more – affects more than 25 million Americans.

As researchers dive deeper into studying pain, it’s more apparent than ever before that there is a psychological component which plays a significant role in this sensation.

What Is the Mind-Body Connection of Pain?

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), evidence has been growing over the past two decades showing that psychological factors can contribute to significant health issues like heart disease – and that mind-body therapies can help combat them.

Similarly, chronic physical pain can cause chronic psychological pain – such as feelings of sadness, despair, rage, and hopelessness. When you’re in pain, it can cause erratic sleep patterns, problems with social relationships, and distractions at work or school.’

What Chemicals in the Body Control Pain?

The two main pain-control chemicals in the central nervous system are serotonin and norepinephrine, and these are triggered by the stress we experience. So this causes a vicious cycle: Stress exacerbates pain, and pain in turn heightens our level of stress.

So, what is someone stuck in this seemingly endless struggle to do?

Psychological Therapies to Help Manage Pain

Proper pain management requires a multi-disciplinary approach to care. Many physicians employ a host of different treatments, including medication, physical therapy, and psychological care, to address both the physical and the emotional aspects that are ailing you.

What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

A psychologistis equipped to practice cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which may help you manage negative thought patterns that are worsening your pain. CBT upholds the idea that people (not the situations or experiences they deal with) control their own moods; so, by essentially correcting these moods, patients can develop ways to cope – even when their levels of pain get worse or don’t get better.

A mental health professional can also address mood disorders, such as anxiety and depression, which may be residual effects of your discomfort.

If severe pain goes unresolved, or causes a malfunction in the nervous system, these pain signals can linger in the nervous system long after the original source of pain has been healed. To help treat this issue, clinical hypnosis has been proven effective for helping patients alter the activity in specific areas of the brain. The anterior cingulate cortex helps to process the emotional responses we feel, while the sensory cortex registers the intensity of pain.

If your doctor recommends CBT for you, it’s important to keep an open mind and see if this method works to help relieve your pain. Although our modern culture tends to gravitate toward everything being done quickly, CBT takes time and patience – but it has had excellent results for many people suffering from various forms of pain.

Can Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Work for Me?

If you decide to try CBT, you’ll most likely receive “homework” assignments to discuss with your doctor. You may be asked to keep a journal of your feelings and thoughts in relation to pain levels.

Dependency on prescription drugs like opioids is a very real problem in our society, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimating that one in four people who have been prescribed opioids for long-term use have become dependent or addicted to them. So CBT and other natural therapies are much preferred throughout the medical field.

Who Can Help Me Manage My Pain?

Focusing on positive coping skills and natural therapies can offer a healthy, long-term alternative for the millions of people who are currently dealing with chronic pain. If you’re one of them, don’t delay treatment – call us today.

The reputable team at Lynx Healthcare can help you navigate through this tumultuous journey and start gaining relief from your pain. Our skilled physicians have experience working with people of all ages, and we have assisted with everything from ADHD to depression.

For more information or to schedule an appointment, call us at (509) 321-4575 in Spokane or (509) 591-0070 for our Tri-Cities, Walla Walla, Yakima, or Goldendale locations. You can also click here to chat with a member of our staff now. We look forward to serving you and helping you live a happier, more pain-free lifestyle again.

Types of Interventional Pain Procedures

About 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, defined as pain that lasts longer than six months. Chronic pain can be mild or excruciating, episodic or continuous, merely inconvenient or totally incapacitating. With chronic pain, signals of pain remain active in the nervous system for months or even years. This can take both a physical and emotional toll on a person, drastically affecting everyday life.

For many people living with chronic pain, finding pain relief can be tough. A lot of trial and error is involved to find a pain treatment that works. Interventional pain management may help chronic pain patients cope with their pain. Similar to other pain management treatments, such as taking prescription medications, interventional pain management can help you to better manage your pain without losing focus on everyday tasks.

What is Interventional Pain Management?

Interventional pain management is a department of pain management that specializes in an array of pain blocking techniques, often in the form of injection therapies. Sometimes interventional pain management techniques play a part in a multi-disciplinary approach to relieve your pain and other symptoms. These techniques may be used in conjunction with mental and emotional therapy and prescription medications.

However, what makes Interventional pain management different from other pain management practices is that it emphasizes the importance of a precise diagnosis so treatment can begin immediately. Rather than just prescribing medication or only recommending physical therapy, an interventional pain management specialist utilizes all sources of treatment to eliminate pain in the fastest and most effective and direct way possible for each individual patient.

There are a host of other interventional pain management techniques that can help you cope with pain. Intradiscal electrothermal therapy, for example, uses heat to destroy nerve fibers to reduce your pain. Another example is cryogenic cooling, which is similar to radiofrequency rhizotomy, but instead temporarily shuts nerves down by freezing them.

Injections: Also called nerve blocks, work to provide temporary pain relief. They send powerful medications, such as steroids and opioids, onto or near your nerves to relieve pain.

Radiofrequency Rhizotomy: Using X-ray guidance and a needle with an electrode at the tip that gets heated, radiofrequency rhizotomy temporarily turns off a nerve’s ability to send pain messages to your brain.

Electrical Stimulation: With this procedure, a stimulator is implanted along with an electrical lead to send electrical pulses directly to the area that’s causing pain—the spinal cord, nerves, or brain.

As with any procedure, interventional pain management procedures may have certain risks. Have a discussion with your doctor about whether interventional pain management is an option for you. Call Lynx Healthcare for more information, at (509) 591-0070 for Tri-Cities, or (509) 321-4575 for Spokane, or request an appointment online.

Massage Therapy for Pain Management

Pain can have a debilitating effect on the quality of your life by preventing you from doing the things you love. Unfortunately, medications are not always enough to eliminate pain.

This is where complementary therapies, such as massage therapy, can save the day.

Complementary therapies are treatment options that can help reduce or eliminate pain (among other symptoms) when used along with traditional medical treatment. One of the most common pain management treatments that is effective in reducing pain is massage therapy.

What Is Massage Therapy?

Massage therapy involves manipulating the soft tissues in the body through pressure and movements to treat a wide range of medical issues. The body’s soft tissues include skin, muscles, ligaments, and tendons.

These tissues sit on top of and around our bones and organs, and can cause unwanted symptoms like pain when things go wrong. By manipulating these tissues using fingers, hands, elbows, and tools, massage therapy can help reduce or eliminate the symptoms.

One of the most common things massage therapy treats is pain. A lot of individuals suffering from pain use this type of therapy in addition to traditional medical treatments, such as medication and/or surgery, to help reduce pain symptoms more effectively.

What Kind of Pain Can Massage Therapy Help With?

There are a variety of conditions that can cause pain. Massage therapy can help reduce pain associated with these conditions very effectively:

Back Pain

Back pain can occur due to injury, overuse, or normal degeneration due to aging. Massage therapy helps relax the muscles and other soft tissues in the back to help relieve pain.

Headaches

Migraines and tension headaches are often connected to tension in the body. Massage therapy can relax the body and help reduce the frequency and intensity of headaches.

Arthritis

Because there is no cure for arthritis, patients with this condition must use pain management techniques to help alleviate their symptoms. Massage therapy can help to reduce arthritis pain by relaxing the soft tissues around the hurting joints.

Pain After Surgery or Injury

After a car accident or surgery, it’s common for people to experience pain and aches. Massage therapy can be useful in reducing pain and stiffness in muscles where tension is being held.

In addition to relaxing muscles, tendons, and joints, massage therapy can relieve stress and stimulate nerves in the area responsible for transmitting messages to the brain.

Types of Massages

There are a variety of massage therapies available. Talk to your pain doctor about which type of massage therapy is right for you.

Popular types of massage that are frequently used for pain management include the following:

Swedish Massage

This type of therapy involves five basic stroke techniques to provide muscle relaxation all over the body. It is particularly effective for individuals recovering from injuries.

Hot Stone Therapy

This massage involves relaxing and loosening tight muscles by using warm stones. The warmth and slight pressure help to relieve muscle tension in the back, face, hands, belly, and feet.

Deep Tissue Massage

Deep tissue massages involve massaging deeper layers of soft tissue in the body. It’s more intense than other massage therapies because more force is involved. This type of massage therapy is great for chronic pain or pain caused by injuries.

Shiatsu

This Japanese massage form involves targeting acupressure points in the body to improve energy flows. The rhythmic sequence used in this type of therapy can help treat a variety of health conditions in addition to pain management, including digestive problems, insomnia, and sinus problems.

Massage Therapy in Washington and Oregon

If you are searching for a licensed massage therapist or other treatment options to treat your pain, call Lynx Healthcare. Our clinics offer a variety of medical care services including therapeutic massage, family medicine, interventional pain medicine, regenerative medicine, chiropractic therapy, and beyond.

To make an appointment at one of the Lynx Healthcare clinics in Oregon, Yakima, Tri-Cities, or Goldendale, call us at (509) 591-0070, or call our clinic in Spokane at (509) 321-4575. We look forward to serving you!

Pain Management and Opioid Addictions: How to Avoid it

Have you ever suffered from such bad pain, that you just reach for your medicine cabinet and take whatever will relieve your chronic pain the fastest? Pain medications such as Tylenol and Aleve usually only offer temporary pain relief, meaning they are not going to stop the pain or cure what's causing it.

Opioid addiction is a serious problem in the United States, and it’s a hot topic both in the medical and political arena. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), along with the amount of people dying from overdosing on opioids, the sales of prescription pain medication have quadrupled. From 1999 to 2015, more than 183,000 people have died in the United States from overdoses related to prescription opioids.

Fortunately, there are many alternative approaches available through pain management specialists, who can provide you with better pain management strategies and drug free alternatives. When it comes to pain management, medication isn’t the only solution, let alone your best option.

When a person is in pain, their stress levels are high. The blood pressure rises, and the body enters a state of distress. With a proper pain management treatment plan, the stress and frustration can be alleviated. While there still may be some discomfort, the patient will work to regain their range of motion and increase their mobility. The more they are able to participate in physical activity, the better they will feel. In some cases, just the act of becoming mobile again can alleviate much of the stress associated with an injury.

Proper pain management techniques can control pain and allow the patient to be comfortable. The patient will be asked to resume various activities at a gradual pace. This will cause pain as the person is healing.

With proper pain management, the patient will be able to notice the difference in pain levels as they begin to exercise without feeling uncomfortable. For many patients, control is the key. They want to regain control of their lives. This means they want to play an active role in how they resume their level of activities and how their pain is managed.

With proper pain and medication management, patients will be able to control their pain easier. Patients who play an active role in the development of their treatment plans are often more likely to resume physical activity much quicker and attempt to regain their range of motion and improve their mobility at a much faster pace.

To learn more about the different options available for the treatment of chronic pain and other conditions, call Lynx Healthcare at (509) 591-0070 or for Spokane call (509) 321-4575 to request an appointment.

Is Exercise Better than Medication for Pain Management?

It is no secret that America is in the midst of a pain med epidemic. At a national level, we have seen a complex, necessary, and controversial topic about addiction to prescription medication. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 40 Americans die every day from painkiller overdoses, which CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden said earlier this year is doctor-driven due to overprescribing. Patients with pain that lasts longer than 90 days: this threshold represents the crossover into “chronic pain” territory, a classification that comes with an increased risk for long-term opiate use and dependence.

Recent high-profile overdose-related deaths only highlight this unsettling trend of increasingly powerful and dangerous drugs being prescribed without fully considering the long-term consequences of this approach. Now, to be fair, opioids certainly have their place. Terminal patients and those suffering from extreme, persistent, incurable pain are just a couple of examples of those for whom opiates are a true necessity.

At the same time, there are millions of people suffering from day to day chronic pain, about 100 million, from conditions such as osteoarthritis or fibromyalgia. People suffering from chronic pain could perhaps be better served through a non-prescription medication based approach. What does the research suggest as a stand-in for pills? Why, none other than the remedy of wellness: exercise!

Today, powerful evidence points in favor of exercise and physical therapy as the best treatment for these chronic conditions. The CDC has urged doctors to prescribe physical therapy, exercise and over-the-counter pain medications before opting for painkillers to address chronic pain. For patients who are seeking to truly get better and work through their condition, opiates offer no objective benefit. Physical therapists, on the other hand, are trained to help patients increase strength, flexibility, and improve mobility, all through the power of movement.

Truth is, that pain medications such as Tylenol and Aleve, and stronger prescription medications such as Oxycodone or other opioids, usually only offer temporary pain relief, meaning it is not going to stop the pain or cure what's causing it, only just for a period of time. Fortunately, there are many alternative approaches available through pain management specialists who can provide you with better pain management strategies. When it comes to pain management, medication isn’t the only solution.

While it may seem counterintuitive to prescribe exercise to patients who are already in pain, even at rest, individual exercise recommendations will vary from case to case, and it has been proven that movement works. According to the American Physical Therapy Association, physical therapists teach patients self-management skills and how to deal with pain in day-to-day life. They show people how to build up strength and improve range of motion, and how to make sensible decisions about how to avoid pain flare-ups. They teach the skills necessary to eliminate the pain and its triggers all together, rather than providing a mask for the pain, as is often the case with prescription or over-the-counter medication.

In many cases, physical therapy has been shown to be as effective as surgery in treating a wide range of condition from rotator cuff tears, degenerative disk disease, and knee osteoarthritis. A customized physical therapy program can help individuals restore and return to their prior level of functioning and mobility, as well as eliminating or minimizing your pain level, while encouraging activities and lifestyle changes that can help prevent further injury and improve overall health and well-being. Thus, eliminating the use of taking potentially addictive medications.

To learn more about the benefits of exercise and physical therapy when it comes to treating chronic pain, call Lynx Healthcare at (509) 591-0070 or (509) 321-4575 to request an appointment and get started on the right path to wellness.

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